


Sitting on the Fence

by Meansock



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: 1950s, Attempt at Humor, Chef Do Kyungsoo | D.O, Depression, Do Kyungsoo | D.O-centric, Enemies to Friends, Feelings, Ideology, Korean War, Music, POV First Person, Philosophy, Prisoner of War, Teacher Kim Jongin | Kai, Threats of Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-16 05:53:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28577055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meansock/pseuds/Meansock
Summary: Do Kyungsoo has learned to classify every person he meets, fit them into little boxes and decide if they are worthwhile or not. A cold December night, in the POW camp of Geoje-do island, he encounters someone who causes him to change his way of thinking.Loosely inspired by Kang Hyeon-cheol's "Swing Kids".
Relationships: Do Kyungsoo | D.O/Kim Jongin | Kai
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	1. Prelude

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Although based on true events, this is a work of fiction. I tried to be as historically accurate as possible, but there are still many things I will certainly get wrong, either for the sake of the story or because of my limited knowledge on the issue. 
> 
> TRIGGER WARNINGS: threats of violence, descriptions of violence, mentions of depression and suicide (mild), cursing.
> 
> I'd also like to clarify that this isn't a romance uwu
> 
> That said, thank you very much for giving this a chance, and I hope you enjoy!

_DO NOT CROSS_ , it read. _Violators will face punishment decided by the court-martial_. “Cross”, in other words.

It was one sorry sign, attached poorly on the wire and written in dripping paint – no doubt by an American hand. The fact that they’re also anti-communists spoke nothing to me – if I were them, I would have been ashamed. I slithered under the separative barbed wire they called a fence and felt it catch at my clothes. Pebbles pressed against my abdomen and I think I saw my finger bleed, but it’s not like I could feel it anyway. Clear winter nights were the most merciless, even when embellished with a full moon.

An involuntary groan escaped me as I finally crossed to the other side. Practically, I was out of the camp – free –, but it wasn’t as if I had anywhere further to go. Ahead of me was a mountain, looming and mocking, and I knew we were surrounded by the sea. The trip from the mainland to here had been more than a few hours, but I was certain some bastard was probably building a boat somewhere in his compound, with the rest of his bastard friends.

We might’ve had a shortage of water, but we sure as hell had no shortage of lunatics.

I took a few groggy steps deeper into the tall, dead weeds and took in the chilly air. It was this little strip of land. My little strip of land. I had discovered it quickly - thanks to the sign, really - it was early spring. The field extended to my eyes’ reach, and I had seen it become colourful and rich, scents blending into a dizzying perfume. Ants had climbed up my leg. I saw it fade into browns and yellows under the merciless sun, and I heard cicadas complain in the summer heat.

The mid-December night was silent. It left me with the impression that I was all alone.

The moon was wrapped around a translucent layer of mist. I couldn’t see the stars.

Unconsciously, I started humming. When I was all alone like this, I felt so pleasantly irrelevant. Back home, my person was everything that mattered, my mind had taken over the four walls of my room and caved in, giving me no room to breathe. The people surrounding me as well. They also gave me no room to breathe.

I danced in a few ridiculous circles to the rhythm of a song I heard on the radio yesterday, shaking the years that scarred me off to the whipping cold breeze. I snapped a couple of poor weeds in the process.

Not too far away, I saw an unfamiliar pole. I had been coming here as many nights as I could, especially when I was feeling upset – which admittedly was more often than not – but I had never seen this out here before. Goddamn Americans know how to waste money on anything but the necessities.

I halted. I took a long, careful look at it through my eyelashes because I had my suspicions, but it wasn’t a pole after all. He was just staying so, so still.

He was standing straight and tall with his head facing up towards the moon like a nightly sunflower. He had mysteriously brought a closed fist over his eye, as a kid would its pretend telescope.

He either saw me, or heard me, because he suddenly snapped his head to my direction. He was quite taller than me. But then again almost everyone was quite taller than me.

Suddenly I felt my breaths being drawn with more difficulty. Why was someone else here? Who was he? Which side?

I could see his own breaths come out as little moonlit mist. He was breathing too.

There was nothing on him that would allow me to classify him as something - how could it, in the dark, and I suddenly became aware of the anxiety that started overtaking me. I didn’t know how to act. I could tell he thought the same, but maybe he wasn’t.

The breath he drew sliced the silence, and I braced myself for a bark or a harsh word.

Something like shots in succession, loud and sudden, sounded instead. Two flashes of light very shyly illuminated his figure.

My eyes widened, and he shifted. I couldn’t see his breath anymore. Nor could I see mine.

He’s not on my side. I could see it, the way his figure was shaped, it was the figure of a lunatic communist. How did I not see it before, clear as crystal as it were? He basked in satisfaction and pride at the sound of the shots. Proud of his comrades who terrorise and hurt and kill, and who riot and who demonstrate, and who execute, and who-

It downed on me; he was going to kill me. I was going to die. I was going to die.

I took a small step back, and he copied my ministrations, like he did from the very beginning, like how animals do to trick their pray into easing.

I ran.


	2. No. 113749 Throws a Tantrum and I Throw my Apron

_December 22, 1951_

The kitchen always had a strong stench. When I was first assigned to work here, I used to think it was something in the ingredients, but I quickly realised that it didn’t stem from the food. This was the stench of people.

This camp’s administration had taken many idiotic decisions ever since they were given this pebble of an island to hold 50,000 of us, and the kitchen planning was one of them. About a hundred men, in all their filthy and sweaty glory, were jammed underneath a leaky roof, around rusty stoves and atop moldy floorboards. I was sandwiched between two prisoners, both taller and smellier than me, with just enough space to carry out my duties.

About three dozen of us worked the same job, chopping the ingredients in my case. I think the Americans came up with this system with the intent of smooth progression; they expected us to work swiftly and quietly like a food-producing machine. Of course, from the moment they recruited amateur home cooks and imbeciles who couldn’t tell the carrot apart from their finger, things took a turn to the hectic. It was quite impossible to isolate yourself from the rest of the kitchen staff.

I managed to remain unbothered for the first few months, my icy demeanour turning down the sideway looks the man next to me gave me after getting rejected by his other neighbour.

The kitchen was continuously buzzing with communication, nudges and mixed energies though, and I didn’t have it in me to ignore him when he started talking to me. I thought I would.

The shaved heads and uniform made us all look similar in an unsettling way, and although he remained my only connection throughout the year, I wouldn’t swear I could recognise him on any given time. Apart from his smiling face which looked uncomfortably childlike, he was quite forgettable. He was No. 113749. Byun, for short.

I rarely ever looked him in the face, focused on the cutting board in front of me. But now I was. I saw it contorting before I even uttered a word. Perhaps it was my obvious rage, or the fact that I was holding a knife. Or the combination of the two.

‘So you’re telling me,’ I said through gritted teeth, ‘that I need to prepare _forty trays_ worth of appetizers for idiot whiteys in _two days_?’

Byun’s mouth twisted tightly into something like a defensive smile. ‘Well, it’s for the Christmas event… everyone will attend…’

‘You do realise I’m being overworked right now? I have to prepare all these atop my usual duties,’ I complained, raising my voice. ‘Just because you lot,’ and here I used the tip of the knife to point around the kitchen, ‘are completely useless at cooking, not to mention dangerous, that means I’m left with the burden of preparing whole meals! And mind you, this is not the first time this h-’

‘Argh, what are you shouting at me for! I’m not the one giving the orders! Why must you be such a-’

Byun interrupted himself after a few heads in the kitchen turned and I saw his chest drop in an exhale. He leaned a little towards me and continued more quietly. ‘Look, I’ll help you out. It’s not like they’ll notice if it’s your cooking or not,’ he said, and with a swift motion of his own knife gathered the ingredients he was to prepare.

‘You are insulting me right now. They requested _I_ do it for a reason.’

Byun ceased his chopping to powerfully throw the knife on the cutting board, all the while staring right into my eyes with an exhausted look. ‘For Pete’s sake be grateful I’m willing to sacrifice my Christmas for you! And you’re not the only one they asked, you just weren’t there when they were delegating and I thought I’d tell you,’ he whined. ‘You act so high and mighty all the time but you’re not even that great, cut me some slack and thank me, for crying out loud.’

I was forced to look away because his raw feelings made me uncomfortable. I didn’t understand why he insisted on shouting. It was always like this with Byun Baekhyun – he started off timidly, but his tolerance quickly ran low. And he liked to throw tantrums, like the thirty-four-year-old child he was. He did not make for a beneficial acquaintance.

I quietly resumed dicing the mushrooms for lunch, hoping no official was passing by to hear him shout. I found myself hoping for many things whenever I united with him. The frequency was not of my liking.

‘…What the fuck is “Christmas”, anyway?’

Through my peripheral vision I saw Byun’s ugly head slowly turning to face me. ‘Christmas, Kyungsoo.’

‘Thank you for being so informative.’

‘It’s to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.’ He slid the clumsily chopped vegetables into the pot, splashing some scorching water droplets on my exposed skin. I flinched.

‘So it’s a birthday party?’

He tossed a few more ingredients in the water and lowered the fire. ‘I’m pretty sure that’s blasphemy, but you could say that, I suppose.’ He shoved a piece of mushroom in his mouth.

I hated the way he ate. I could hear his jaws hungrily clenching down and grinding the fungus, robbing it of its juice selfishly. They opened and closed, producing a rude, wet smacking sound that seemed to never end. Loudly, messily, without an ounce of consideration for the people around him. And all that with his mouth open, so all could see the disgusting mess on his tongue.

‘Fourteen people died.’

Byun halted his ministrations. ‘Eh?’

‘Fourteen people died, twenty-four wounded. Four days ago.’ I tore my apron off and sharply tossed it on the stove, not caring where it landed. ‘And we’re holding a birthday party?’

Byun’s look of confusion was reflected on his voice, too. ‘What are you...’

‘This is absurd,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘I cannot believe these same men try to teach us about respect and acceptance and co-fucking-existence.’

I turned on my heel and started walking across the humming kitchen, the floorboards’ creaking barely audible to my own ears.

‘Hey!’ barked Byun’s annoying voice. ‘What’s gotten into you, all of a sudden? Hey!’

‘It’s not all of a sudden,’ I said, for no one else to hear but myself.

The staff in the kitchen were still preparing the lunch dishes for the compound, to be served in a couple of minutes. They were moving around, chopping, washing, slicing, stirring, chatting, minding their own business.

No one tried to stop me.

Someone must have tried to stop me. Lunch had yet to be served and I had already fled the kitchen. But I had thrown my apron, and without my apron, no one had a way of knowing what business I had going about – not even the guards I coolly walked past. Maybe if they weren’t bickering, they’d give me a second glance.

The open air smelled perhaps worse than the kitchen, but at least there was no staleness to drape over my lungs. The sky was so heavy it gave me the impression that there was nothing else beyond, just a thick, sooty dome.

People worked hard all around me. Washing, repairing, polishing, hammering, sewing. Much like in the kitchen, they were gathered around small stalls and worktables that looked like they’d give way the moment they underwent another pound. We were almost a year in, and every tool was well-used, everyone well-acquainted with his inmate, and the type of job he was assigned to do since stepping foot here.

Within all the noise, I could hear laughter and cries of glee. So many people had smiles plastered on their faces. Working side by side. Helping each other out. Some were slacking. A couple of brats were chasing each other around the tents and bumped into passersby, all of which forgiving or playfully chiding.

I wish I could say today was just everyone’s day. That truly they are all terrified, miserable, heavy, sleepless and unfulfilled. That the people they laughed with took advantage of them and the talks were superficial. That they hated being jammed together and smelling each others’ breaths. That much like the clouds, there was nothing beyond their smile.

But every day here was everyone’s day.

It was true, we were too many to fit in this speck in the ocean. Their plan was to only bring North Koreans in Geoje-do, at least from what I had gathered, but they purposely accidentally also shipped Chinese and South Koreans along. We were about 160,000 prisoners. Add 100,000 refugees. Add 120,000 natives. It was a mistake.

‘Hey!’

Each compound was built to fit around 1,000 men. As a cook for my compound, I prepared 6,000 dishes instead. It was obvious things were not going according to plan - it took an idiot to realise the camp was overpopulated and a Byun to not feel uncomfortable within it, but I would not have been sure had I not seen the original blueprints and capacities. You could find anything in the library. Well, not really.

‘Hey, you!’

I felt an iron grip on my shoulder. I was swivelled around in a small cloud of dust, lost my footing, but the clutch on my shoulder was so strong I remained perfectly upright.

Two tall guards were looking at me gravely – fair, round-eyed and square-jawed. They looked the same.

They asked me something, in American. All I could focus on was that annoying “r” sound they made.

I shook my head. ‘I don’t understand.’

The other guard grabbed my other shoulder forcefully and asked again, as if repeating the question would give me insight in this dreadful language. My bones were squeezed and ground together and it started hurting badly, and I wanted to tell them, and I wanted to keep my mouth shut.

I looked around, my eyes wide and pleading. Lost in thought, I had walked away from the buzzling street and near the compounds. There was but a small group gathered near the fence, being very discreet and closely packed. I regretted everything.

“Fuck”, that’s one word I was well-acquainted with. The guard melting my shoulders shoved me. They were so much taller and so much stronger than me, and so much more impatient.

They looked like ticking bombs.

‘I’m South Korean. On your side. On your side,’ I tried, and hated every word that came out of my mouth. ‘Anti-communist.’ It wasn’t working.

The same guard fisted my lapel and forcefully stuck his face with mine. His breath smelled like heavy nicotine, and my throat closed up. He drawled something, in an ironic tone. I had the impression he was mimicking me.

‘I’m on your side, you thickheaded fucks,’ I whimpered desperately.

It was the first time I got punched in the face. My entire head snapped to the left from the impact. My cheek stung hotly and my jaw was on fire. Black dots danced in front of my eyes, a few at first, then multiplying. I could hear nothing but my blood pumping and a loud ringing, but I thought I was let down.

I heard the guards talking again, but it felt like I was trying to hear through a cotton swab. Something was quickly running from my nose, intruding the seam of my lips.

Someone touched where they had grabbed me, and the contact was so nauseating and _wrong_ , that I felt the entirety of my body trying to repulse it. But it wouldn’t move.

‘Can you hear me?’

The dots decided to retreat the more I blinked. I was staring at the dusty ground, a few black dots adorning the space in front of the tip of my boot. Everything was blurry.

‘Can you hear me?’

I looked up slowly, to the person holding me at arm’s length. I could only make out short-cropped hair and khakis, and the newspaper he held on his other hand. His complexion was the same colour as the ground.

That. That was the voice, the face, and the touch of a communist. Aside from the obvious prisoners’ uniform, every nerve in my body burned in confirmation. His lead hand was still on my shoulder. Staining it. Sending ripples of queasiness to my chest.

‘Can you hear me?’

‘Y-yeah…’. My jaw was in sharp pain.

‘They’re saying you should go for screening.’

My blood froze. My heart kneeled from the pressure.

No, as a South Korean I didn’t need to go for screening. But admitting to a communist I was not one of their kin would have the same outcome as being in these Western donkeys’ mercy, if not worse.

A small part of me considered fleeing, and the desire made my foot twitch. But my clearing eyes caught the M1s’ strap secured around the guards’ chests. It would not be the first time they’d kill a prisoner. Nor the last.

Fuck me.

‘I’m not a POW, fuck’s sake,’ I half-whispered. ‘I’m here due to alleged accusations.’

The animal frowned before turning to the guards, who were both wearing the same idiotic expression. He spoke in English quickly. His “r” didn’t sound the way it was supposed to.

‘Do you have papers?’

My mouth opened, then closed. ‘What fucking papers,’ I said, and my voice cracked. ‘No. 113464, Do Kyungsoo, Compound 60. Tell them to lynch me if I’m lying.’

My heart was beating so loudly it hurt. They could probably see it though my shirt. After a few words from the communist, the guards muttered amongst themselves, turned around and walked away, looking almost disappointed. One of the two spat on the ground by my feet.

My knees came undone.

‘Whoa!’

The communist bent down with me, and his newspaper fell with a flat sound. The bold black words were typed in what I learned to identify as Latin characters. I recognised a few. F-R-I-E-…R-I… N-I-E-…-S-…-E…

‘Are you alright?’

I wanted him to leave. I looked over his shoulder at the small group of people by the fence. They were staring.

‘Yeah. Yeah.’

‘Maybe you should go to the hospital. Your nose…’

‘Is that about Friedrich Nietzsche?’

His eyes widened in concern, eyebrows meeting.

‘The article.’ I pointed at the page by his feet. Oh, I was out of my mind.

‘The… yeah… but-’

With my head blank, I snatched the dirtied paper and ran past him, with all my might. Every stride felt like a hammer through my head, my muscles were tightened ropes, my bones hollow and my skin tearing apart. But I couldn’t stop.

Funny how I still tell myself I’d rather die than go through another day.

I’ve had plenty of chances.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading this chapter! I hope it was worthwhile. 
> 
> I did lots of research to write this, and for anyone interested or in need of more context I typed up a little historical note. If you're more knowledgeable in the subject, your input or corrections will be very much appreciated!
> 
> The Geoje-do POW camp (located in Geoje Island south of Busan, S. Korea) was operated by the UN and held North Korean and Chinese prisoners captured during the Korean War (1950-53). The camp consisted of 4 enclosures, each divided in 8 compounds which were designed to hold about 1,000 men. However, the prisoner count soon reached over 150,000, from which many were even South Korean and brought into the camp "by accident" (imprisonment in a labour/POW camp over minor crimes, allegations and political resistance was common). Every space available was used to hold men, with only barbed wire to keep them separated. Communication and items were exchanged freely, facilitated by the terrible security. 
> 
> The security consisted of ROK and UN guards, who held a lot of resentment for the prisoners - and vise-versa. They also generally were of lowers ranks, or inexperienced. The American guards also knew little to no Korean, so they could not communicate with the prisoners and were reluctant to interfere when there was trouble. The fact that the rivalry between ROK (who were supposed to maintain order) and KPA soldiers usually came to acts of violence and threats didn't help. 
> 
> Since prisoners were freely communicating it was very easy for them to organise riots and demonstrations. And they did. The 14 deaths and 24 casualties Kyungsoo mentioned here were results of a rock-fight between compounds on the 18th of December, which was followed by other smaller-scale riots. I could give many other examples but I won't, to make my story more suspenseful >w<
> 
> List of riots in Geoje-do POW camp: http://www.koreanwaronline.com/arms/KojeDoRiots.htm  
> ashamed for the Wikipedia citation but it is what it is (we love you wikipedia): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoje_POW_camp


	3. Good Thing Jesus Christ didn't Attend his Party Because the Music was Something Else

_December 25, 1951_

It was stomach-churning to watch the food I prepared with my blood, sweat and tears disappear within minutes. Not only had I prepared them, all alone, at that – I knew better than to rely on Byun, I had to serve them too now. Was this someone’s idea of a joke?

A horrendously dressed woman picked a caramelised apple slice from my tray in what she must have thought was a delicate manner, and smiled at me. ‘Thank you!’ she said, in mercilessly butchered American, and disappeared into the crowd.

The Christmas party was being held in what usually served as an auditorium – for Bible studies, specifically, judging by the sign hammered on the door. Much like any other facility in the camp, it had a rather impressive capacity, but still not enough to hold the attendees comfortably. The ceiling was tall and lit by small, bright light bulbs bathing the room in gold and covering the smell of food with that of electricity. To the far back there was a stage, a band playing mambo in front of drawn curtains, swaying playfully to their melody. The excitement from the audience must have made their practice sessions worth it and then some.

A good hour in, and some fools were still trying to set up some sort of tacky decoration on the wall – a carboard star -, one man atop another one’s shoulders, three others sticking around to anticipate the fall. They were most probably under order.

The American colonels were awfully keen on impressing the Red Cross Association, which visited about once a month. Their main itch was to ensure that the camp abided by the Geneva Convention conditions, checking the prisoners’ well-being and satisfaction within the camp. They once took me aside and questioned me about my contentment as a prisoner, when it was still spring and I didn’t have long here. I don’t remember what I told them, but on their next visit they brought my compound books, paint, art supplies, lined paper, chessboards.

The problem was that I couldn’t say that I was properly bored.

It was a line between mundane and terrifying that shouldn’t have formed. Between familiar and uncharted. I would’ve been fine with either, but it was the combination that promised a never-ending restlessness within me.

My daily life here was plain and predictable enough to be considered mundane – I was just cooking, and I liked cooking, but it was beginning to become a drag. It had already, in fact, become a drag, but I was too afraid to admit it to myself.

But there came the occasional _execution._ The occasional life-threatening experience. Our lovely next-door communists loved to make their presence known. They rioted. They demonstrated. They shoved mutilated limbs in piss-buckets. Bodies in drains. In ditches. On the fence. At your compound door. Around the corner. Sometimes there were two, or three. Sometimes they weren’t quite dead yet. Sometimes you would see someone going around with his trousers around his ankles, or holding his arm, or his head, or limping, or all of the above.

You wouldn’t know if their banners were written in mere red paint or in blood. The camp reeked of it. It was burning my nostrils, like a warning. I didn’t move around much, I only really had two places I would head to, but I was afraid. The moment I allowed myself to relax, that’s when yet another atrocity would occur.

You never knew when it could be your turn. It was almost like a form of torture.

‘You look like you’re being tortured!’ It was a very annoying voice, accentuated by a very dumb laugh, and I did not want to deal with this tonight. Although I was standing at the entrance, I somehow hoped he would miss me.

No. 113749’s disagreeable face obscured my vision. He seemed in awfully good spirits, eyes twinkling under the fairy lights, large teeth proudly exposed. He gave me an unwelcomed shove. ‘What’s with you?’

I took a calming breath. ‘With me is a tray of fucking apples I barely managed to prepare on time, no thanks to you, that I am now inexplicably supposed to serve.’

My attitude failed to faze Byun. ‘Don’t be stupid,’ he said, and the irony prevented me from feeling bitter. ‘What do you think the stalls are for? Here,’ he shoved himself past me and to the array of tables behind me. He carelessly parted the domes and dishes apart, revealing the white tablecloth underneath. ‘Just put it here.’

I eyed the guard standing right next to us, but Byun’s denseness didn’t allow him to get the message. He took the tray out of my hands and placed it snuggly between the dishes, in the space he created. He turned to me and rubbed his hands together, in a sign of proud accomplishment.

‘I can’t believe you wasted an hour like this!’ he scoffed. ‘Come on, let’s dance!’

He tried for my wrists but I averted them, letting him catch the empty air. ‘I do not dance with you,’ I stated flatly.

‘Let’s find you a lady, then!’ he exclaimed, as if that was my problem. ‘Can you believe it? They brought civilians!’

This time, he grabbed the fabric over my chest and fisted it tightly, ensuring my confinement. Assisted by the maracas’ rhythm, he took a few twirling steps towards the live sea of people, dragging me behind.

Byun’s cheerfulness led me to believe at least his compound wasn’t planning on mass murder tonight. Or maybe they decided not to involve him, their plan would have less chances of being ruined this way.

I soon found myself amidst a maze of khakis, and my sense of smell was invaded by sour sweat, bitter alcohol and traces of perfume. Byun was trying to encourage me to unstiffen, gently rolling his shoulders while inquiring around with his eyes, his head tipped a little upward in a search.

The women weren’t many, but they stuck out like glittering pins on dark hair. They seemed very valued and admired by the men they danced with, to an extent that almost made me chuckle. By now women had become a myth, and the women’s POW camp something like the El Dorado. I hadn’t realised I missed women’s faces until I saw them – and not in an impure manner, simply the necessary reminder that the POW camp wasn’t everything there was. It was not just mud, shaved heads, grey, and red.

‘You!’

The harsh bark tore through the music and made us turn our heads in panicked unison. From my peripheral I saw other couples freezing in place to look back, around. It was the guard that was standing next to me while I served at the entrance.

‘You,’ he repeated, and pointed towards me. Mutters.

The people separating him from us went pliant like wheat stems as he came through, some properly running away. ‘With the stupid face,’ the guard said as he took another stride with a lanky limb. Byun and I exchanged looks, and he suddenly found himself bearing twice the anxiety, as mine almost completely drained. He clearly was the one fitting the description, but guards sometimes had strange perceptions.

‘The taller one,’ the guard finished. He stood right before us, casting his shadow over our faces.

The bastard would’ve been proud of that last characterisation, if the guard himself weren’t a good head taller than him, and was looking at him very, very gravely.

‘Y-yes?’

He grabbed Byun like he had been grabbing me, and pulled him to his direction, almost knocking him to his chest. ‘You think I didn’t see what you did,’ he said, and something in his tone sounded forced. ‘You think you’re so smart.’

With a sharp tug, he separated him from me, and rushed him through the opened path; Byun fighting for his balance as he was held at his tippy toes.

‘Did what?’ I heard him cry, and the idiot really had no idea. To be honest, I hadn’t expected him to face consequences for something like this. Guards from the ROKA tended to be more severe than Americans - they took the North Koreans’ choice of siding with the Soviets personally. They felt betrayed.

Like the Red Sea after Moses’ Exodus, the people flooded back in and tucked the mismatched duo away from my sight, right before I caught myself worrying.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ a smooth voice announced in the microphone, and an invisible string pulled my head to the direction of the stage. My body followed. ‘I would like to introduce a special dance performance prepared especially for today.’ The lights dimmed, and the little square stage was the only thing still brightly lit. Many tops of heads were blocking my view of it. Too many, for my liking. ‘Please welcome Kim Jongin on stage!’

When someone whooped loudly next to my ear, I decided to attempt to take a few steps closer to the podium, through the applause. I tried to find a spot which wouldn’t make me uncomfortable, but alas, there was none.

The announcer politely exited the stage to grant it to someone else. The man who entered was clearly a prisoner, with a thin and laboured body and his hair cropped short – but his posture made him tall, relaxed and almost elegant. He was dressed in a white shirt loosely tucked in brown slacks.

His shoes made a lot of noise against the floorboards, as he made his way to the microphone.

‘Thank you.’

My brows furrowed at the nasal voice. It somewhat reminded me of American “r”s.

‘I hope everyone is having a wonderful evening. Along with our camp’s jazz band I have been preparing a little show of dance for your entertainment tonight.’

Badly pronounced ones, at that.

The black curtains faced a small complication before being properly drawn to reveal the quintet, and Kim Jongin’s little nervous scoff was enhanced for all to hear.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, “The Red Cherries”!’

I picked up on the innocently disguised connotation and refused to clap for something like that. It would not make any difference to them anyway – everyone else did it.

The man added a quiet “please enjoy” as he set the microphone near the podium’s edge. His walk back to the centre, although but a few steps, felt like an eternity. The audience was holding their breath. The silence was heavy.

The trumpet sounded loudly and suddenly, making me flinch. It was a curt, introductory melody until it quickly built up to an allegro, joined by the double-bass, then the clatter of the drums.

On cue, the performer stomped his feet on the floor. The sound of his heeled shoes was crisp, like knocking stone against stone. He just noisily rapped in place for a moment, as if testing the sound of the music, his arms slowly beginning to swing back and forth.

The band grew braver, drums playing a quick beat that didn’t quite drown the shoes’ tapping. The music was bold, lively, a little gypsy almost. It matched the players’ boisterous movements and adrenaline-flushed faces. The person next to me begun swaying to the music excitedly.

Kim Jongin of the stage performed an odd footwork. It almost looked like swing dancing, the type I caught peeks of when my mother was watching television – but it wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t as… choreographed. It looked like he danced around the music, cautiously stepping between the notes, in a way I couldn’t describe. It was very loose yet very specific, like he was trying to figure out the most efficient way to walk. In his case, he made do in every way. It did not look exactly beautiful, and I did not understand why these black-and-white shoes produced so much noise, to the point of distracting me from the music, but it was a novelty. Entertaining to watch a man make a dance out of tangling his feet.

But then, something happened. The song ceased its melody and played something monotonous - repeated, muted chords for a short blissful moment that I carelessly wasted wondering why the change. The trumpet, the loudest and nastiest of them all, began an unsupported solo venture. It played its own individual song – chaotically, arrhythmically, and inconsistently. It did not sound like the trumpetist intended to carry on with the melody, he wanted rather to show off his skills and all the different techniques he could play. The unpreparedness was blatantly obvious and shamelessly showcased. It was stunt after stunt after stunt and no musical substance. It was more alike an elephant’s trumpeting than a human’s.

I glanced around the audience, shock pulling my eyelids apart. Nowhere did I see a face mirroring my disgust. Some even clapped to a non-existent rhythm with idiotic grins plastered over their mouths. I heard a voice howl in excitement. I was the only one uncomfortable. 

After the trumpet decided to give me peace by falling back to its low-range melody, the drumming stopped. I hadn’t realised the headache they were causing me until it did, and I felt a weight being lifted off my heart in newfound calmness. There was no moment of rest between each crashing of the cymbals. But that didn’t last long until the piano keys began their own stunt. They were simply slammed, sometimes to a Latin sound, sometimes to a harmony – completely uncoordinated. Yet another two-minute circle of hell.

And the man in the centre was not dancing. He just…

I had never seen something like this before. He tapped his feet on the ground rhythmically, going in circles with his arms outstretched loosely. He tossed around, made wide movements, skid across the floor, rapped his heels quickly in succession. Using the momentum from his arms, he stood right on his tippy toes for just a few seconds. He did that again, and again, until my own toenails began to hurt.

He powerfully stepped on one foot, kicked sideways with the other, on one side, then the other, one side, other side, until he almost collided with the band behind him. The mid-air pirouette elicited cheers from the audience. His foot moved loosely like its ankle had turned to gelatin, near the floor, producing a different sound at the ball than it did at the heel than it did at the tip. It moved like a fish out of water. It had a life of its own.

He swung his hips in an imitation of a figure-eight, stomping his feet and producing a rhythm that argued with the chaotic beat. He picked up the pace. It was like his upper body did not communicate with the lower, dislodged. He shot his arms right up, tossed his head back. Amidst the pandemonium of sounds, he laughed.

The keys kept repeating the same chords, only louder in progression. The trumpet kept playing its song, producing ugly, strangled sounds. Like an elephant. Like an eternal mosquito near my ear. I wanted to crush it between my hands. The cymbals crashed and crashed, the double-bass painfully plucked and shaking my heart. Never in my life had I heard music so...

And that other sound. Piercing through my brain, making my eyeballs tremble and my teeth clatter with the vibration. It seemed like he was lightly hovering above the floor, but there was so much _noise._ Each step added to three different sounds. My eyes couldn’t trust my ears, and my ears couldn’t trust my eyes. My heart dropped to my stomach, as if in hopes of evacuating the mayhem. A hot feeling began spreading in my chest, and suddenly I felt completely helpless and foreign – a feeling I had felt not long ago. An urge to communicate but to also run away took over me. I hadn’t run away then.

It was an uncontainable cacophony.

And Kim Jongin was laughing on the podium.

And the audience was laughing underneath. And clapping.

And the trumpet was a person trying to snort out something lodged into their nose. The drums were a toddler playing kitchen against floor tiles. The piano was a teacher shouting over their students, repeating “silence! silence! silence!”. The double-bass a quiet assassin. 

Was I the only one again?

And _tap-tap-tap, tap-tap, ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-tap! Tap-tap-tap-click!_

And _clap-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap._

And “silence! silence! silence!”

_Tap-tap-ta-ta-ta-tap! Ta-ta-click, ta-ta-click! Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-ta-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-ta-tap- tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-ta-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-ta-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-ta-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-ta-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-ta-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-ta-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-ta-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-ta-tap tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-ta-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-ta-tap- tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-ta-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-ta-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-ta-tap-_

Silence.

All I could hear was the low buzz of electricity.

My eyes opened slowly, eyelashes reluctant to part. I couldn’t quite process what I was looking at; it was warm and bright. I was seeing everything through a thick, hazy lens.

A sharp pain suddenly stung the back of my head, and my tailbone followed suit. I groaned.

I was lying on the auditorium floor. My fingertips scraped the splinters on the floorboard, found an icy emptied can as well. Beer can.

I was drunk.

My head was swimming, feeling extremely heavy and extremely light at the same time. Someone was squeezing my brain mercilessly and I could barely handle the auditorium’s low light. My eyes squinted as if the fairy lights were brighter than the sun. 

My arm moved across the floor like it carried the earth’s troubles, and with much effort I managed the prop myself onto my elbow. With lethargy I looked around.

The podium was dark and the curtains were drawn, some of the cardboard letters previously attached to it were hanging at odd angles and others had completely fallen off so that the message now read “Mr Christmas”. The food stalls were empty save for the serving dishes, and the stained tablecloths were sliding off. A couple of guys were slumped against the tables, only a few giving signs of life. There were cans and stepped-on food on the floor, confetti on every possible surface. The only movement came from a couple who were making out against the wall on my right.

In disgust, I brought my other arm to support me in my lift off the colourful floor. Every part of my body resisted me as I forced it to stand upright.

I couldn’t miss the exit even when everything was swaying. My footsteps sounded sharply against the floor, uneven, slow. My head was pounding rhythmically. Tap-tap. Tap-tap.

Like a doe taking its first steps I made it to the half-opened door and with all of my body’s weight I pushed it to go out. I needed to return to my compound and get some sleep – I was on duty tomorrow morning. In a few hours, really. 

The nightly frost whipped my cheeks and bit my fingers. The stark cold lifted the drowsy veil off my head, and the light icy droplets that occasionally tapped my forehead cleansed the ache away. Although late, there were still some people scattered about, in pairs or trios, chattering or walking or preparing for the next day under the dull lamppost lighting.

Tap-tap-tap-tap, the person walking in front of me.

Clink. Clink. Clink. The shoemaker setting his stand.

Crunch… crunch… crunch… My footsteps.

Boom-boom. Boom-boom. Boom-boom. My heartbeat.

Crunch… tap-tap crunch… clink! Boom-boom. Crunch… tap-tap-clink! Boom-boom. Crunch… tap-tap-clink! Boom. Crunch… tap-tap-clink! Boom. Crunch… tap-tap-clink! Boom. Crunch… tap-tap-clink!

‘Oh, you! Hey!’

I jumped. Blood rushed to my cheeks.

‘Hey, excuse me.’

My feet had taken me to my compound, walking near the barbed wire fence. My mind… Someone was calling in a hushed voice. I thought it was aimed at me – I looked to my right, hesitantly.

A figure was standing very close to me, but thin, spiky lines were going through it and making it seem faraway.

‘Me?’ I rasped, and my eyes widened at my voice, thick, unrecognisable. I coughed.

‘Yeah, sorry. Do you think you could give me my newspaper back?’

A voice of American “r”s.

‘Your…’

‘The one you stole.’ I could not make out his face in the darkness. ‘I wouldn’t mind you keeping it, but I need it tomorrow morning. I have to translate the news to my compound.’

The stomper from tonight had a voice of American “r”s. He was also the one who…

‘But I didn’t finish reading it.’ The words left my mouth before my brain could process them. No, I wasn’t supposed to be talking to someone like that. I was not supposed to meet this person twice.

He knew about me.

The figure scoffed, and cautiously rested a hand on a wire square, loosening it a bit. ‘Why, can you even read?’

My eyebrows furrowed, and my mind did its best to get ahold of my emotions, but to no avail. I could feel the control slipping through my fingers. Anything I said could be used against me. I could be dead tomorrow, or missing a leg, or an eye. Or they could- ‘Of course I fucking read!’

Another hand on another square. ‘And what did you gather from the title?’

‘It was a Friedrich Nietzsche review.’

His silence was heavy with a smile. ‘No, it was not.’

Of course it was not. I couldn’t fucking read.

My silence was heavy with the battle between my sanity and my stubborn body, that was about to place its own hand on the wire.

‘If you want, you can stop by at 7. I read the entire newspaper.’

I cocked my hip. ‘I don’t want Nietzsche being read by the likes of you.’

I could tell he wasn’t expecting something like this, and I didn’t either. It was like watching another person converse, like I wasn’t inhabiting my own body. Every word I uttered was another shovel to the hollow of my grave.

‘The likes of… What’s wrong with me?’ he asked, and the pitch of his voice gave away his genuine bafflement – and hurt. Being a communist was what’s wrong with him, but that wasn’t my point. Not this time.

‘You’re obviously not qualified to recite Nietzsche’s passages. Your lack of related experience will dullen the manner in which the text is meant to be read in.’

Another scoff, and this time I could not identify if it stemmed from shock, surprise, offense, or something in between.

‘What a statement,’ was the retaliation, and I sensed something in his voice that put my pride at risk. ‘Although I won’t deny the fact that I haven’t recited Nietzsche before, I am more than qualified to recite philosophical passages. Paid, in fact, to do so – before all this mess.’

My initial reaction was surprise, then the feeling that I had gotten myself into some trouble. I was itching to ask what sort of job he used to be working, but I set my curiosity aside.

‘Passages such as?’ I asked, voice full of irony.

The figure removed his hands from the fence and took two steps back, folding his arms at his chest unfazed by the challenge. ‘”One morning, upon awakening from agitated dreams, Georg Samsa found-”’

‘”-himself, in his bed, transformed into a monstrous vermin.” _The Metamorphosis_ , Kafka. Easy.’

‘”It was only because of their stupidity that they’re able to be so sure of themselves.”’

I smirked. ‘Kafka again. You like him, don’t you?’

His shoulders shifted. ‘No, actually. He was too out of his mind.’

I gave an exhale of a laugh. ‘You cannot possibly remain sane once you start contemplating life,’ I said.

‘I used to think that,’ he replied. He swivelled on his heel, outstretched his arms to the sky easily, fluidly. When he spoke, his voice sounded distant as he had turned away from me. ‘But I know of plenty who were very clear in their views, so definite you just had to agree, in fact.’

I watched as the figure examined the black firmament above him. His thin shape was lined golden by some faint lamppost. ‘Do you know of Kierkegaard?’

‘Too much on religion,’ I said. ‘I’m not much acquainted with Christianity so frankly I felt quite uncomfortable reading his works.’

The figure didn’t reply, just continued staring at the sky. Almost like…

‘What is the point of a religion that is baffling its followers so? Are Christians generally like that? Do you know?’

His exhale came in the form of a glittering mist, in the shape of a smile. ‘The disappointed ones.’

I blinked once, twice. The light sleet shower was damping my shirt, making the icy fabric stick to my chest. My reaction to a loss for words had always been sarcasm, but somehow this time it didn’t feel right to mock something that sounded so... vulnerably revealing. I wondered if he intended on saying this, or if he also watched another person converse, not owning his body. ‘…Are you Christian?’

‘Hmm. Maybe.’

He should have sensed the displeasure his answer caused me, because he laughed. High-pitched, and quiet. ‘I thought you liked existentialism.’

I shrugged. ‘I never said anything of the sort.’

‘Well, you seem to me like you do.’

I wondered if he could see my face at all, or if I were a mere shadow for him as he was for me. And if he could indeed see my face, I wondered if it were possible to tell which philosophical movement was my favourite. And I wondered if I could see his face, whether I could tell his too. Not that I'd be interested in knowing. ‘I assume you’ve studied a bit of Camus.’

‘A bit,’ I allowed myself to admit. ‘Not as much as I would want to.’

‘What have you read?’

‘ _The Plague_ and _The Stranger._ ’

‘Ah,’ the figure clicked his tongue. ‘You missed the most important one.’

My eyebrows arched. ‘I was under the impression _The Stranger_ was the most important one.’

‘Well, I was wrong to phrase it this way,’ he said. ‘All works have importance. Anyway, I’m freezing. Bring me the newspaper quickly and get lost before we get into trouble.’

And the bubble around me popped, just like that. It was these words, "freezing", "quickly", "trouble". I was never taken out of a trance so violently before, that I suddenly felt the biting cold and the ring in my ears and the ache around my mouth and the stiffness all over my body all at once. I hadn't realised they had ceased. 

‘But what’s the most important work?’ I cried. I tried to grasp at the long-gone warmth. I was scared.

‘Piss off, then! What does it matter!’ he hissed. ‘Go, go!’

My laden feet obeyed easier to his voice at that instant than they obeyed me. They dragged through the watery mud, aching with every clench of muscle.

My eyes stung, my chest hurt. My head pounded. The feather sleet felt like thousands of needles to my skin. I was so tired, an ice-cold corpse walking under order. If I returned to a deserted fence, I would be more than ready to accept that I’d imagined the whole thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Friendly history corner about the Red Cross and Geneva Conventions:
> 
> The Geneva Conventions were mentioned a couple of times in "Swing Kids" as well, and they seemed to be the root of the Americans' problems! They consist of four treaties that set some standards and laws regarding humanitarian treatment at times of war. Here we're looking at the 3rd Convention "relative to the treatment of Prisoners of War", which was established in 1929 and updated in 1949.
> 
> Aside from the establishment of fundamental prisoners' rights and protection, the treaty also included the prisoners' quality of life in POW camps (quality of food, psychological well-being, entertainment) which was regularly checked by the Red Cross. People from the Red Cross would observe the prisoners' lifestyle or question random prisoners about their daily life and overall satisfaction. They eagerly provided the camps with supplies and tools for the prisoners' hobbies and entertainment.
> 
> A problem nobody expected begun to arise, however, as the prisoners asserted power over their captors. They even often used items provided to them by the Red Cross to attack (such as makeshift weapons from wood or scraps of metal). The Geneva Convention of course did not include any laws regarding the captors' rights, so they prisoners were not restrained and could basically do whatever they wanted. The captors, though, had trouble retaliating because that would mean breaching the treaty.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Take care!


	4. If I Hadn’t Left the Health Education Class Early

_January 21, 1952_

Old habits never die. Never.

I thought after a year, I would stop trying to reach for the little vial of pills. It wasn’t there anymore.

I was sitting outside my compound, munching on my stale breakfast in disinterest. The sky had lost its luminescence due to the excessive cold, and droplets of melting ice on white-dyed twigs occasionally burned my hand or nape. No one had lost his mind quite enough to willingly sit outside at this time of the year, so I could enjoy a little while alone.

I never expected I would have to bond with inmates in the camp more than I had to before the war. I thought I would just be left alone, ignored – avoided, rather. It was what I knew. How I was raised.

Although my behaviour had not changed in the slightest even after my diagnosis, my family did not quite return the favour. They were never very tolerant of my mood and just decided to leave me to my own devices after their attempts were to no avail, and I took no issue to that. Faked it until I made it, more like. However, as if my diagnosis were a magic word, some sort of spell, it rang a bell within my parents’ little minds and for them I was suddenly cursed. And I didn’t care for my parents’ absence as I had learned how to take care of and to quietly entertain myself, but I did care when I was separated from my brother for it. He’d get contaminated.

I wish my parents were here right now, to see brain-dead idiots and country boys and communists knowing better than them, no one gave a flying fuck about my mood or if they did, they still treated me as shittily as everyone else. And I wanted them to see that no matter who I ever talked to in here, my depression didn’t rub off on them.

I scraped the bottom of my bowl with the wooden spoon. My hand twitched in old force of habit, in complaint over the emptiness. I would have taken it by now. My tranquilizer.

‘Hey,’ I heard a voice softly call behind me. I turned around.

It was another bald-headed, hollow-cheeked prisoner, using one arm to swing from the compound’s doorframe, the other to hold a small stack of paper. Something in the way he carried himself reminded me of Byun, but no, it mustn’t have been him.

‘Take one,’ he said, offering me the papers, and I obliged.

‘What is it?’

‘It’s the new education programmes. You have to choose which one you want to enroll to,’ he explained, and stopped swinging. ‘You were supposed to do this yesterday, but you somehow always miss the gatherings. Baekhyun told me to give you it.’

‘Oh,’ I merely said.

‘You shouldn’t have any problems, but make it quick because classes start this afternoon.’

‘Are they compulsory?’ I asked.

‘Yeah,’ he replied grimly. Suddenly, as if struck by current, he cried: ‘But!’

I looked with questioning eyes.

‘Don’t go to “orientation”. It’s the damn Yankees, I’m telling you. We checked the curriculum and it’s capitalist propaganda.’

I frowned. ‘What?’

‘Yeah! Things like “aims of the United Nations”, “democracy”, “life in the United States”.’

For once, the lunatics weren’t exaggerating. I was not so sure about the Americans’ tactics here. Were they completely blind to the uproar the commies caused once they felt a hint of what they called oppression?

‘Don’t go. We must show our resistance.’

My silence was taken for an agreement – his small brain wouldn’t fathom something other than that in this situation. He heard what he wanted to hear.

He heavily brought a hand on my back, and through my shirt’s thin fabric, it was chillier than the melting ice.

‘Brother.’

And I would have stood there for longer if the cold weren’t numbing my limbs.

I was quite fashionably late for my class, for reasons not even I could begin to fathom (better, would rather not address), and I paced around in front of the closed door like a fool.

The muffled voice I heard if I leaned close enough – never touching the wood, however – indicated the lecture had already advanced quite a bit. If I entered now, all eyes would be on me. Judging, sneering, snickering, staring, whispering, following. If luck sided with me, which seemed to be the case lately, I would even be reprimanded by the lecturer. Needless to say I felt deeply uncomfortable by my own scenarios.

Amidst the subzero temperatures, a droplet of sweat formed on my temple. With my brain I knew no one would give more than two shits about my tardiness, at most maybe recount it at dinner to his superficial friends if the silence got too heavy, but with my heart I didn’t. It always had been like this, knowing but not knowing, and I was beginning to get very sick of it.

Very simply I pushed the door and walked inside.

It wasn’t as warm as I had anticipated it would be, but anything was better than this excruciating cold. The entrance, bless it, was located at the back of the hall, so that I was faced with hundreds of khaki backs and the podium in which the lecturer stood. He also was a prisoner.

Maybe three heads lethargically turned to my direction as I tried to find an empty space, the lecturer didn’t have the faintest I even walked in.

I had been holding a breath. I released it as silently as I could, as though if I was quiet enough I could pretend it was never there in the first place.

I snuggly sat between two men, both of them with different attitudes about the position they were currently in. I couldn’t see the lecturer properly.

‘…especially since you’re so many in each compound. Make sure your belongings are used by yourself and yourself only. Otherwise you might get sick. I know it’s winter and you want to keep close, but if you get sick you must be wary not to spread it to the others. No coughing, no sneezing on others. No kissing, no sex, no contact with contaminated surfaces. No consumption of contaminated food or water. No contact with animals. Be wary of fleas. This is very important. You hold a lot of responsibility, for yourself and for your inmates.’

Unconsciously, my eyes begun scanning the sea of skulls. When I caught myself, it almost felt like I was looking for someone. But I didn’t know who. There was a strange itch within me I did not want to scratch.

‘We have medicine for everything nowadays. It’s not embarrassing to go to the hospital if you feel bad, you know. You should also encourage others to see the nurse if they have any physical injury or feel ill. This is very important.’

Someone had done this for me. On a particularly grey day. I hadn’t gone.

‘When you go to the nurse, you must be very honest about how you’re feeling, otherwise it will make treatment a lot more difficult. Most of our medicine has a wide range of uses, but sometimes taking the wrong drug can get ugly.’

I disliked the lecturer’s language and attitude, his stance emitted a certain arrogance although he was not being technical or smart at all. He was just another bald idiot who perhaps studied a thing or two about medicine. He begun pacing.

‘You do not treat viral infections with antibiotics. This is very important. Unfortunately, bacterial and viral infections have similar symptoms, so you won’t be able to tell what you’re infected with by yourself.’

_Tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap._

‘Penicillins – amoxicillin, flucloxacillin, oxacillin-’

I thought I heard a clattering sound through the nearest wall. It was rather faint, but the couple of other heads that turned to look around confirmed my senses.

‘Cephalosporines – cefalexin, cefadroxil-’

_Tap-tap-tap… tap… tap…_

Then, I heard it. Loud, hoarse, even through the wall. It ripped a healing wound right open.

The fucking trumpet.

Most of the heads in the auditorium snapped to the right, the rude instrument seizing their attention. It played a few sparse notes, I couldn’t even tell if this was warming up or performing.

Of course the class I picked had to be next to the music room.

The clatter sounded again, but this time I knew this was no ordinary clatter – it was the cymbals.

‘Tetracyclines – doxycycline, lymecycline-’

 _Tap-tap-tap-tap._ And the trumpet, and the cymbals. Shut up, shut it.

‘-tinidazole, these are all antibiotics. We have them in the hospital. I think.’

My neighbour yawned. How could he, with all the ruckus? That awful, awful chaos, something I had forgotten about.

‘We very often have cases of tuberculosis. For this, you must ask for iproniazid.’

Tap.

Iproniazid.

This singular, odd word, and the band fell silent. Or maybe my mind was too preoccupied to process the noise. It zeroed on that unfortunate lecturer’s bored articulation. For iproniazid, tuberculosis. For iproniazid…

That’s right. Isn't this why it all started?

The drums began banging, loudly, muffled yet crisp, sending vibrations to my defenseless heart, and they felt like shots.

I left the hall with a headache, an unforgiving pressure to my temples. Aside from the atrocious commie band relentlessly violating their instruments next door, my skull pulsed with the sour smell of sweat and the lecturer’s drawling and stupidity.

More than three quarters of the class up and left the moment the lecturer made it clear all drugs were provided by the UN – but by who else? – then some attempted to attack him, were stopped by others, aggressed by said others. I subtly slipped outside the moment the first chair was thrown, decided not to stick around for the rest.

I never had a special bond with my stable of a compound, but it felt like home at the moment, and the one and only place I wanted to head to. My boots marked the dusty ground with heavy sound and swift rhythm, my arms automatically came to intertwine across my chest in attempts to battle the cold.

The sun had just set, leaving the sky in a light indigo hue and a large, round moon near the horizon. The wires of the fence interrupted my view of it, and I took two steps forward to look between them. I had a bad case of astigmatism, but I just knew how sharp the halo’s curve was against the pale purple.

A cry echoed through the evening’s quiet bustling, catching me off-guard. It wasn’t a usual cry – there was no terror, no pain, no urgency lacing it. It bubbled with laughter. With a curious eye I looked through the fence, wondering what could have caused such a foreign sound.

I first noticed the prisoner - dark figure in a nonchalant squat with his elbows resting on his knees. Then, a child emerged from behind him, running around him like an orbiting moon. Another one stood in front of him, and they seemed to be talking.

The prisoner suddenly caught the running boy as he passed between the conversing duo for the tenth time, and stood straight with him still flailing in his arms. I heard that cry again, then laughter. The other boy, the more timid one, craned his neck to look at the tall figure. They continued talking, but the sparse words I made out were unfamiliar. They were English.

The little boy tugged at his trousers and pointed towards me. The prisoner turned his head, following the small finger. A complexion like bronze, a face of sharp edges, the fabric loosely hanging from his shoulders. I had seen all this before. It seemed to me the feeling was reciprocated.

‘Is it you?’ he called, and took a few steps closer. He put the boy he was holding down and drove them both away with a gentle word and touch to the back.

‘Me?’ I hesitantly asked, and my eyes dismissed the boys chasing each other away in favour for the approaching prisoner. Apparently this forced word was all he needed for recognition to spark in his eyes. And with it, a smile. ‘It’s the philosophy freak!’

I couldn’t prevent my eyes from widening. ‘The-? Why would you call me that?’ I asked, my voice dangerously teetering on an offended tone.

‘Because you quoted lines from the top of your head?’ he replied, dragging his first word. He halted noisily right in front of me. If you removed the fence, we would actually be standing very closely. ‘You never told me your name, anyway.’

It was the first time I got a clear look at his face. Our first encounter was too blurry, the second too far away, the third too dark. At a first glace it gave a rather hostile impression because of all the angles and the lines and the roughness of his skin. But his eyes were almond-shaped and there was a curve to his brows and a dip to his lip that spoke otherwise.

‘Do Kyungsoo,’ I said, dryly. I don’t know why I stared right in his eyes, as if challenging him, daring him.

‘Do Kyungsoo,’ he repeated with a slight nod, and the sound of my name was strange when it wasn’t being spat. He accepted the challenge. ‘I’m Jongin. Kim Jongin.’

It immediately rung a bell, from when the announcer had introduced him that dreadful night. ‘And don’t you have class, Kim Jongin?’ I asked.

He shrugged. ‘I could ask the same.’

I sighed, for dramatic effect than anything else. ‘The lecturer was incompetent and managed to cause a mayhem involving throwing chairs, so I favoured my head over half-assed health education and quit the room.’

His eyebrows arched and he opened his mouth to say something - probably about the chairs - but I interrupted.

‘And before I fucking forget, your talentless band had practice next door and made me want to rip my ears right off. I couldn’t concentrate even if I wanted to.’

I couldn’t believe the little smile Kim Jongin tried to suppress. I was prepared for a good set of reactions, but a smile had me dumbfounded. ‘”My” band?’ he just asked.

‘Oh, you know. The Commie Strawberries or whatever.’

I immediately froze. I hadn’t just said that. I was completely and utterly out of my mind to gain such confidence talking to a murderous communist, knowing the consequences very well. He would spit on me. He would charge at me. He would grab me, rub my face against the barbed wire, until I bled, until my skin peeled off, until I screamed, until- He-

He snorted, in very ugly laughter. He held a palm over his mouth. ‘The Red Cherries?’ He looked up. ‘They’re not “my” band! I just danced to their music.’

‘You call that music?’ I retaliated, so weakly because of the clash between my mouth and my mind. My mind, as always, lost.

Kim Jongin stood up straight, expression turning a bit graver. ‘It’s jazz.’

I frowned. ‘It _wishes_ it were jazz. What’s with the… the… these solos? They sound terrible! They have nothing to do with the rest of the song, it’s like they come up with them on the spot and-’

‘They do come up with them on the spot.’

‘- they’re so chaotic and just… loud! There’s no melody!’ I paused. ‘They come up with them on the spot?’

‘Well, pretty much. Jazz is all about improvisations. It’s really hard, you know, just anyone can’t do something like that. It comes with a deep knowledge of music and many hours of practice, getting to know the bandmates’ style, weaknesses, fortes. You can’t really play jazz if you don’t have it in you. Confidence!’

I remained silent.

Something in Kim Jongin’s expression changed, very subtly, a sombre nuance. ‘But then… you didn’t like the performance? In Christmas?’

My eyes shot up from where they had dropped on the pointy piece of wire. I never expected to be asked about that, so I hadn’t rehearsed any kind of response. ‘I… well. I don’t regret watching it.’

His hopeful eyes urged me on, and I found it ridiculous. I hadn’t even said I liked it, just that I didn’t find it a complete waste of time. What was he so happy for?

‘I’m a firm believer that every experience is valuable to have, and your performance was completely new to me. I had never heard or seen something like this before.’ I thought of leaving it at that, but then, ‘What was this dance, anyway? Some kind of swing?’

Kim Jongin grabbed the separative wire with both hands, and gave his biggest smile yet, his eyes turning to little crescents and his cheekbones heightening. ‘Tap dancing! It’s an American type of dance. It was from the few things included in the recreation programme, along with the band and drama classes.’ He swung, very lightly, backwards. ‘I got a very good bashing from my compound because it’s a dance by the anti-communists.’ His eyes searched for something on his right. ‘Actually, they’re sort of keeping their eye on me, but it’s worth it. I really love dancing, so I knew I had to take it up.’

Never in my life had I expected I would hear these words come out of a communist’s mouth. In fact, I was certain I heard wrong. I blinked. ‘You would dismiss your political stance for a _dance_?’

He gave a lopsided grin. ‘It’s just a political stance,’ he gently said, and retreated his hands from the wire.

My eyes popped out of their sockets. ‘ _Just_ a political stance? Do you even know what you’re talking about?’

The grin turned bitter, condescending. ‘Is it so wrong I don’t put ideology over every single one of my actions?’

‘It’s- it’s not _ideology_! It’s so much more than that, it’s what got us in all this fucking mess! And you’re telling me you don’t even care about it? After everything that’s happened?’

He scoffed. ‘ _That’s_ what you think caused the war? Are you serious? There are always underlying reasons, proper reasons, that lead to conflict. It was about territory! About the imperialist movement!’

I shook my head, frowning. ‘You’re-’

‘Communism, capitalism are nothing but ideologies! We just inflated them into these monstrous villains because we stopped trying to resolve the issues between us and kept using them as excuses!’

‘Then tell me, since you’re so absolute, why we stopped resolving our issues. It all comes down to the huge gap between us. We have such different values it’s impossible to reach a conclusion everyone is truly agreeing with!’

His eyes widened impossibly, as if he heard exactly what he needed to hear, and the light of his truth was so eager to wash over me. ‘You’ve fallen into the trap! They just needed a reason to start war, and a reason to get common people like you and me want to _kill_ one another-’

‘It’s not a reason, it’s _the_ reason, it’s the _core_!’ I cried. ‘We’re on opposite sides of the spectrum! We live differently, we have different mindsets! It’d be futile to try to communicate with someone you _know_ won’t understand!’

‘You don’t _know_ it! You don’t! These are just stereotypes we created ourselves! Why must we allow labels prevent us from enjoying each other, enjoying life? Why must we allow them to blind us?’

‘You don’t get it,’ I shook my head in disbelief, with stress behind each word. ‘This “mere ideology” has revealed so many truths! We finally see each other in the light of day, we now finally know what we truly fight for, what we stand for, what we live for! We just clash so violently, we’re practically not allowed to co-exist! You see it every bloody passing day, and don’t even pretend you fucking don’t, you’ve been living through it for a year. You _cannot_ pretend ideology hasn’t brought us to this nadir. Look at us, Kim Jongin, and tell me why the _fuck_ this fence comes between us!’

A moment of silence passed, and I would think I had the last word in this, if not for the clench of his jaw and the step back. ‘We shouldn’t even be talking, then!’ he cried, and opened his arms. ‘We shouldn’t!’

I didn’t reply.

‘If it’s so wrong! If it’s against our nature!’ He let his arms drop to his sides, noisily. His chest was heaving.

Time turned into tar, heavy, sticky, slow. The open air was suffocating.

And then, ‘I know _I_ don’t feel it’s wrong when I talk with you,’ he finally said. The wave of relief that washed over me was so strong and so inexplicable. Embarrassing.

I clumsily dropped to the ground, as if our argument took a physical toll on me. ‘You’re so strange, though,’ I murmured. Talking quietly now made me realise how long I’ve had to raise my voice. Or get angry like that. ‘You don’t count.’

Kim Jongin followed my example and sat on the dust himself, loosely wrapping his arms around his knees. We must have been looking incredibly dumb. ‘Neither do you.’

‘It’s just… I cannot trust anyone in here. Everyone’s… different than me,’ I confessed. ‘I thought I would have gotten used to this sort of thing by now, at home I was treated like a leper due to circumstances that were out of my control, but I suppose I had something like hope I wouldn’t need to hide here too. I’m not avoided this time, but I need to do it myself, for my sake.’

‘No-one has found you out?’

‘Well, I’m laying as low as possible. They barely know I exist. And I thought I was okay with that, thought I’d power through it for a couple of months or so, but this is dragging for far too long.’ I chuckled. ‘Actually, you’re the first person I’ve genuinely talked to ever since I came in. And I wouldn’t even do it if I were in my right mind.’

There was wonder in Kim Jongin’s eyes.

‘I guess my survival instinct kicked in. I don’t think I can take isolation for much longer. It feels so bad, sometimes… I feel I could die from it.’

A moment passed, and I thought I heard Kim Jongin gulp. I felt terrible for saying these things to an absolute stranger, but I finally realised I didn’t have anyone else to tell them to, anyway. Finally admitted it to myself. And it felt…

‘“I perceive, therefore, that hope cannot be eluded forever, and that it can beset even those who wanted to be free of it.”’

My eyes reluctantly travelled from his calloused hand to his arm, shoulder, jaw. Acne scars were engraved on it. I would never admit the quiet sound of this sentence was completely unfamiliar to me.

‘I hope I quoted it right,’ he sheepishly said. ‘It’s from Camus’ most important work.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone care to guess Camus' most important work??
> 
> I'm having the sneaking suspicion this is getting boring I knew I had to figure out a plot first---- I should have cleared out from the beginning this is very self-indulgent ':D As always, thank you so much for reading!
> 
> Anyway, a lot to unpack here in our history corner! On the education programmes and iproniazid:
> 
> Education programmes were enforced very early on, and that's because there was no qualified personnel to carry out manual work, repairs, improvements in infrastructure etc. The camp's administration created programmes opting to teach prisoners skills needed in the camp (e.g carpentry, painting, motor repair, electric utility work). However, the approach was changed in March 1951 and programmes were designed to provide "an understanding [...] of the political, social and economic objectives [...] of the United Nations and assisting them in [...] becoming better citizens in their country". They included courses like agricultural training (which was very popular), school continuance (for young prisoners whose education was interrupted), recreation (music, drama, movies, art - also popular), and of course health education. The most successful phase for prisoners' education was from June 1951 - May 1952. From then onwards, there was sabotage from communist prisoners (especially regarding the orientation programme).
> 
> Iproniazid (MAOI of hydrazine class, formula: C9H13N3O) was originally designed to treat tuberculosis, but it had a strange side-effect by which patients became inappropriately happy. It was first used as an anti-depressant in 1951 but it was most widely distributed in 1960. Its use was discontinued due to its hepatotoxicity (caused liver damage). It is still used in France, if I'm not mistaken.
> 
> For more details on the education programmes: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7249/mg934osd.11?refreqid=excelsior%3A319229ee25ebe5b9c46a9b2fd42a65ca&seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents (!! For Korean War prisoners please check Chapter 3 on pages 17-32, more specifically pages 20-23 where I also got my references from !!)
> 
> On iproniazid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iproniazid

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this far! I'd love to hear your thoughts :D Have a wonderful rest of the day/night!!


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